Monday, March 31, 2014

IPCC Working Group II Publishes Section of AR5 on Socio-Economic Impacts of Climate Chnage

The full WGII report is here. The Summary for Policymakers is here. Before reading through the Summary, I had read that the respected climate economist Richard J.S. Tol had resigned from Working Group II because the final report, in his view, was too "alarmist" about threats to food security (see, e.g., here).

Having now glanced through the main findings in the Summary, I agree with Tol that the Working Group might not have taken sufficient account of adaptability in agriculture. But overall the report seems consistent with the Working Group I's latest assessment of the physical science basis of climate change. And, as someone who has been following the science and social-science of climate change for some time (without participating at all in the UN or IPCC processes), I did not find Working Group II's report unduly alarmist. That said, I have not yet had time to read the full report as carefully as I would like.

Teaching and Research Interests

I teach Property, Environmental Law, Natural Resources Law, Land Use, and Law & Economics. My research interests are interdisciplinary, focusing on the law and economics of property and environmental protection.

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